Guest Editor’s Profile – Mark Saunders

Mark Saunders

In terms of your things, what does your space (studio/office/living area) look like? Please describe.I am a designer and illustrator living and working in Winnipeg. I work at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival as Marketing & Communications Coordinator – designing programs, marketing materials, the occasional ad, editing artists’ bios, as well as selling advertising space in the organization’s programs.

I am spoiled; my home and workplace are each equipped with futuristic 27” iMacs, both of which I can’t live without. Flanking these focal points is cluttered madness, which, periodically, is straightened, dusted and organized. At work, since I am constantly referring to theatre programs, my desk is littered with them. These pamphlets – from the ‘60s to the present – remain in stacks on my desk until my current project is finished and I have time to straighten.

At my workplace, like other office-employed nerds and weirdos, I’ve decorated my space with toys and statues. I like to surround myself with 3D representations of my favourite popular culture characters from the history of comics, film and television. My office is a tame version of my home; I don’t want to alarm my coworkers with the jaw-dropping volume of my collection.

At home, I try to confine my action figures, statues, kaiju, vinyl toys and miniature figurines to a single bookshelf, though the sprawling nature of my collection sometimes necessitates otherwise. (I’m certain my wife isn’t happy about this fact.) I’m currently on the verge of a purge: dusting, cleaning and moving some items to storage.

The bulk of my possessions, though, is my comic collection, which is meticulously catalogued and filed, and safely stored. It occupies 40-something storage boxes and is comprised of a lifetime of obsessive collecting, as well as a few choice selections from my father’s late-1940s/early-1950s childhood. I doubt I’ll ever part with this collection.

Where do you normally get your things?I acquire pieces for my collection from everywhere, though I suppose online auction sites like eBay might be the majority suppliers. Time once was that I would carry a tattered list of comic back issues I needed in my wallet. That was pre-Internet. Now, if there is anything specific I need, I’m only a few simple keystrokes away. It’s silly, but I can’t stop marveling at the ease with which completionists can find things nowadays. There isn’t much of a “hunt” aspect that remains.

What is your prize possession/”thing”/collectible/tool?My apartment. I wouldn’t have any place to put my stuff without it!